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The point is, the fluff doesn't matter when you're in game. You can go and say 'Oh see the gun my model has? It's banana magazine means it's a Paxton Killmaster 5000.

But I don't want to see that on datacards when trying to play a streamlined game! I want to go and see, 'Oh, it's an AC7'. Which means it's got the AC range bands, and damage 7. DONE. SIMPLE.

So much of the game needs to have that level of streamlining done to it.

Likewise, last I checked, a lot of the game still needs very basic passes to show how off the math can be. People are still arguing for +1d6 defense for every scrap of terrain in the way between the firer and the target... in other words, ranged combat simply won't work on boards with any decent amount of terrain. Zany.

 warboss wrote:
Also, a second review of the PDF went up on DTRPG. I'm actually impressed given the reviewer that he only gave it 4 stars. I'd disagree personally about the difference in power between LW and FIF (or even TPS) though as I consider them to be roughly equal. Blood Debt is the only overpowered outlier to the point that if I ever face a paxton player I'd ask him to spot me an extra 10% TV to cover the special abilities that he doesn't pay anything for. I would also point out that the north (or at least the UMFA) actually PAYS for army wide special abilities.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
And this isn't mean-spirited, but rather just an additional observation; AL13N also has reason to be happy, because all but nothing for his own faction got touched from what he signed off on as a tester.

It's basically another instance of folks playing the game in an almost completely different meta (see first link in my quoted sentence) using most of the same rules, but then basing their recommendations on that small sampling of a game where it's obvious the older, less optimal models are going to get slaughtered when facing a bunch of [+everything] models on that table setup, which is typical for that group's locale.

And then being unable to see past that for anything else, along with an unwillingness to be persuaded some inclusion actually does balance something else in-game.


But as I think IceRaptor said, a flat [+mod number] is almost always better in Silhouette over most everything else, including skill.

Which Dave has now turned into needing to figure out how many dice to roll, which is probably too often more than you can hold in your hand, for almost every attack, defense, or other in-game check.
In principle I can see the benefits of such a change, but the amount of dice, equating to the amount of some kind of mods......
He has "blitzed" the revamp ruleset into taking just as long, with just as much if not more complexity.



I got to vent a bit yesterday and over the past couple weeks, which I guess is good. My actual responsibilities to the Pod, game, canon setting, and players is done.

Anything further I might create relating to Heavy Gear or another setting is entirely for myself, which I may or may not share.
Mostly because I'm tired of my competence and knowledge immediately being questioned by the vast majority of folks either online or IRL in lieu of having an actual discussion.
Especially with the type of folks who only want to be right and can't see it.


I might watch mecha on occasion, but I don't care to game it, at all. But that is what most everyone is into anymore in some form or another, which doesn't leave a lot of room for any other views.

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 Killionaire wrote:

Likewise, last I checked, a lot of the game still needs very basic passes to show how off the math can be. People are still arguing for +1d6 defense for every scrap of terrain in the way between the firer and the target... in other words, ranged combat simply won't work on boards with any decent amount of terrain. Zany.

... We are talking about DP9. Math is irrelevant, wrong and evil.
So is taking into account differences between table layouts, trying to figure out what kind of terrain is needed, and writing clear guidelines so that players know how they should setup their tables, for that matter.

..

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Poor Alien, I admire his enthusiasm, but yeah, that group was troubling as they would push agendas that were clearly bad ideas, and get more attention because of their enthusiasm.

The Alpha is a shame, as I recall Ice originally capped the dice mods fairly low, which would've helped speed things up, as once you hit X dice, just roll.

Most Mecha shows today, I can't really get into. They've repeatedly tried to top each other in spectacle to the point where they end up more like super hero robots and cease to have any grounding in reality. Some of the best instances of mechs tend to be shows where the mechs aren't the focus of the show, they're just there, like Ghost in the Shell's tv series.

And yeah, math and process has always been the pods problem.

ferrous wrote:


Most Mecha shows today, I can't really get into. They've repeatedly tried to top each other in spectacle to the point where they end up more like super hero robots and cease to have any grounding in reality. Some of the best instances of mechs tend to be shows where the mechs aren't the focus of the show, they're just there, like Ghost in the Shell's tv series.

And yeah, math and process has always been the pods problem.

Yeah, Ghost in the Shell had enjoyable (if sometimes annoyingly voiced) mecha. Though I think Gundam MS08th Team is my favorite for gritty, land based mecha action. Over the top seems to be the name of the game now-a-days.

ferrous wrote:
Poor Alien, I admire his enthusiasm, but yeah, that group was troubling as they would push agendas that were clearly bad ideas, and get more attention because of their enthusiasm.

Yes, that did get awful annoying during testing and outside of testing, considering how often they didn't provide anything beyond "that sucks for my army."
Yet when one of those guys asks a question it's usually answered pretty quickly, or even that same day.

ferrous wrote:
Most Mecha shows today, I can't really get into. They've repeatedly tried to top each other in spectacle to the point where they end up more like super hero robots and cease to have any grounding in reality.

 Chemical Cutthroat wrote:
Over the top seems to be the name of the game now-a-days.

During the Memorial Day weekend I downloaded a few subbed titles off YouTube to check out things I remember seeing as a kid back around the very early 80's or late 70's.

I finally saw the ending of Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers: Quest for Iscandar)... all 2+ hours of it, which I notice Robotech and subsequent series heavily copied or outright ripped off.
Creating their own material would probably have been a lot better.

I managed to sit through two whole episodes of Fang of the Sun: Dougram and then deleted the few others I had started to DL. All those guns, yet everyone literally walks into melee range.
I think it was actually worse than VOTOMS on the corny-cliched-convenient-o'meter, if that is even possible.

Apparently though you actually do have to be a kid to watch Battle of the Planets, as I only made it through one episode.
I hadn't remembered the Scooby Doo cast doing the English voice acting.


I didn't watch any Gundam, from the previews and wiki writeup it seems too much like what Battletech or Heavy Gear turned into.


I started watching Starship Operators, which has zero-G ships but no mecha that I've seen as yet.


I've watched some GitS and Appleseed, but I wish they were as pragmatic about combat in the show(s) as they tend to be in the manga.
Instead of being all about watching the female characters strip down, which really cuts into time better used to make sense of the detailed plot or else to have more fighting.

Planetes I think struck a good balance, except for not having any robots.... Mars Daybreak however is pretty silly, even though it does have robots and drones.

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 Chemical Cutthroat wrote:

Yeah, Ghost in the Shell had enjoyable (if sometimes annoyingly voiced) mecha. Though I think Gundam MS08th Team is my favorite for gritty, land based mecha action. Over the top seems to be the name of the game now-a-days.

Yup, that was one of the few Gundam shows I liked. But we're both mentioning shows that are almost a decade older or more. GiTS was 2005, 8th ms team was 1996. Ouch.

mrondeau wrote:

 Killionaire wrote:

Likewise, last I checked, a lot of the game still needs very basic passes to show how off the math can be. People are still arguing for +1d6 defense for every scrap of terrain in the way between the firer and the target... in other words, ranged combat simply won't work on boards with any decent amount of terrain. Zany.

... We are talking about DP9. Math is irrelevant, wrong and evil.
So is taking into account differences between table layouts, trying to figure out what kind of terrain is needed, and writing clear guidelines so that players know how they should setup their tables, for that matter.

Yeah, that lack of mathematical rigour is probably what is really holding back DP9 on its rules development. Playtest reports are valuable, but some things should be apparent by even basic number crunching but get ignored in the approach of playtest report-uber-alles.

ferrous wrote:

 Chemical Cutthroat wrote:
Though I think Gundam MS08th Team is my favorite for gritty, land based mecha action.

Yup, that was one of the few Gundam shows I liked. But we're both mentioning shows that are almost a decade older or more. GiTS was 2005, 8th ms team was 1996. Ouch.

It's kind of like what gone done with the new Star Trek movies, going the whole-hog non-stop special effects bonanza in place of plot or etc because audiences are so used to seeing things like Star Wars that all they care about is the pretty.
Same goes for games too, and it's getting worse not better I think.

It's almost like the creators want you to be numbed by visual or information overload before the game or movie even hits the halfway point.


Not to mention most folks nowadays seem to have the attention span of a gnat, expecting everything to be handed to them or figured out for them instead of looking it up for themselves before applying that gained knowledge.
While an easy thing to cater to, it doesn't leave anything for those looking to see some meat out of their entertainment.

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Daba wrote:Any comments on how new rules are turning out? Would it be better to use a 'Heavy Infinity' type as I haven't managed to play a game of Heavy Gear yet with the current/old/ihavenoidea rules and I'm semi-familiar with the Infinity ones?

(I have a reasonable number of northern and southern mechs and units, but never played a game with them).

IceRaptor wrote:

 Daba wrote:
Any comments on how new rules are turning out? Would it be better to use a 'Heavy Infinity' type as I haven't managed to play a game of Heavy Gear yet with the current/old/ihavenoidea rules and I'm semi-familiar with the Infinity ones?

Brandon and Warboss' take on Infinity Gear - are pretty nice. You'll get a more Infinity feel from them, if that's what you're looking for. The Silhouette rules have a beauty of their own, but expect to have a learning curve as you start figuring out how to make the different pieces work well together. Either way, hope you have fun!

That's a very nice compliment coming from you Ice. Thank you.

Chemical Cutthroat wrote:I sat down with all my rulebooks last night, and along with some browsing of BrandonKF's rules, started working on some ideas of my own.

But my goal isn't to try and replace the rules, I'm just adapting the setting to a rulesystem that I'm more experienced with. For lethality and whatnot. Certainly not for balance reasons! That truly must be the most frustrating thing about game design, trying to give cool abilities/units while maintaining balance. Right now I'm just working on the weapon charts and adjusting the statlines to something different, and then crossing them over so they still have any special rules represented properly (or almost properly). Damnit Excel!

I could post links to stuff once I have it more concrete if anyone is interested. I might bug this thread's massive depth of knowledge at times if that's alright.

Feel free to send me a link to your blog/page/what-have-you with your own houserules, Chemical. I wouldn't mind starting a small fan-based circle of folks who created a cohesive set of fan rules for the game.

Eumerin wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
Paxton sells to everybody. Easy to describe written-off chassis getting PA weapons for themselves. Cheaper, more durable, and easy to find ammunition.

The Polar nations should have plenty of incentive to support their own arms industries. For instance, going to war with Peace River (always a possibility) could easily cut into the availability of LACs if they were using Paxton Arms models. Plus, the simpler Paxton Arms stuff - a LAC, for instance - is, according to the fluff, just knock-offs of equipment designed and produced by the Polar Nations.

NorthCo, Shaian, Keimuri, and Riley, should all be selling LACs by the bucketload to the Northern nations. And their Southern counterparts should be doing the same for the Southern nations.

I was speaking more of independent city-states, Eumerin, but your point is very valid.

ferrous wrote:Poor Alien, I admire his enthusiasm, but yeah, that group was troubling as they would push agendas that were clearly bad ideas, and get more attention because of their enthusiasm.

The Alpha is a shame, as I recall Ice originally capped the dice mods fairly low, which would've helped speed things up, as once you hit X dice, just roll.

Most Mecha shows today, I can't really get into. They've repeatedly tried to top each other in spectacle to the point where they end up more like super hero robots and cease to have any grounding in reality. Some of the best instances of mechs tend to be shows where the mechs aren't the focus of the show, they're just there, like Ghost in the Shell's tv series.

And yeah, math and process has always been the pods problem.

Chemical Cutthroat wrote:Yeah, Ghost in the Shell had enjoyable (if sometimes annoyingly voiced) mecha. Though I think Gundam MS08th Team is my favorite for gritty, land based mecha action. Over the top seems to be the name of the game now-a-days.

Hence why I'm a fan of Heavy Gear. 08th MS Team is still my favorite UC Gundam storyline. All except for a few bits, but I won't get into that.


-Brandon F.

BrandonKF wrote:

That's a very nice compliment coming from you Ice. Thank you.

Agreed, especially considering the source! Just for clarity, though, I'd mention that my house rules are derivative of HG Blitz and not related to Infinity as Brandon's are.

I think Blood Debt will soon hit (4) "fixes," so I wonder how many this last one will need....

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 Smilodon_UP wrote:

I think Blood Debt will soon hit (4) "fixes," so I wonder how many this last one will need....

At least one more is needed... a flat 10% increase in EVERY threat value to account for the ubiquitous special rules that NO model actually pays for yet ALL of them benefit from. Oh, and something like double cost artillery strikes to at least nominally (although not in reality) "pay" for their half price airstrikes. Those two changes would at least give the impression of balance in Blood Debt as opposed to the mary sue cheesefest my army is the bestest pdf it currently is.

Ok, let's be honest here, Paxton is far from being the only, or even main, balance problem. They might have more obvious horrors than the other factions, but if you pick the good options from the other factions (i.e. the broken ones), you can build lists just as un-balanced.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
[..]and the first big thing is that Saleem and then Robert completely changed how the datacards were set up to work, I guess maybe to save space in an electronic format, but didn't change how the option line swaps were worded in the combat groups to reflect doing that.... as well as quite often reordering the options out of what little order they had to begin with...

It might be kind of hard to fit in a Jaguar Wildfire here and there when it's now only found on the Fire Jaguar, or ditto for a Hunter Wildfire that is now found only on the Assault Hunter. Which I notice got missed on pretty much every datacard for their special [AE 2] trait MPZ as well.

I expected more screaming about this by now, so most folks must not have noticed as yet. One thing I saw was that it seems to be impossible now to get some of the XMG models into the GP combat group because of how regular Hunter models have to be swapped with TPTB changes.

A lot of what they did also seems to have made it so many player's squadrons have to be [Veteran] as well, instead of more of them being allowed as [General], or else folks have some pretty off the wall builds.

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mrondeau wrote:
Ok, let's be honest here, Paxton is far from being the only, or even main, balance problem. They might have more obvious horrors than the other factions, but if you pick the good options from the other factions (i.e. the broken ones), you can build lists just as un-balanced.

Is it the only one? No, but it is an obvious one and the most recent (and continuing one given the initial alpha model stats and proposed lists). It also is the easiest to cheese out because the STOCK models that people already own have been buffed both in model stats, character stats, and special rules that cost players nothing. If I want to cheese out other armies, I have to buy new model releases and spend actual money making the cheese much less likely to be encountered in the wild (not that I can find many players but the point stands). With paxton, saleem just got to cheese out his existing collection with no one to tell him (with any authority) that he was taking it too far by not charging anything for the myriad of benefits. There is (as always) more behind the scenes drama than normally publicly known like Saleem unequivocably telling me that a certain existing northern build was just too powerful and couldn't be allowed to continue... only to have it appear in the Paxton book two weeks later as an option for the same type of squad that was losing it in the northern pdf. Is paxton as bad as Talons were before they were nerfed several times in a row (via multiple TV increases)? No... but the same design ethos permeates both.

I think you know my opinion of Saleem, so I won't go there, but I can find horrors that make Paxton looks over-costed in the Southern and NuCoal books too. You are over-emphasizing the issues with PRDF. It's a symptom of the true problem, but it's not the true problem.

The true problem is that DP9 does not care about game balance at all. It's just that the previously problematic "designers" were more subtle than Saleem about boosting what they want to play.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
[..]and the first big thing is that Saleem and then Robert completely changed how the datacards were set up to work, I guess maybe to save space in an electronic format, but didn't change how the option line swaps were worded in the combat groups to reflect doing that.... as well as quite often reordering the options out of what little order they had to begin with...

It might be kind of hard to fit in a Jaguar Wildfire here and there when it's now only found on the Fire Jaguar, or ditto for a Hunter Wildfire that is now found only on the Assault Hunter. Which I notice got missed on pretty much every datacard for their special [AE 2] trait MPZ as well.

I expected more screaming about this by now, so most folks must not have noticed as yet. One thing I saw was that it seems to be impossible now to get some of the XMG models into the GP combat group because of how regular Hunter models have to be swapped with TPTB changes.

A lot of what they did also seems to have made it so many player's squadrons have to be [Veteran] as well, instead of more of them being allowed as [General], or else folks have some pretty off the wall builds.

I suspect people just haven't crunched the army list's new options enough to notice it. The variants swaps have a pretty steep learning curve and you have to remember that you're way ahead since you mapped out every nook and cranny.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mrondeau wrote:

The true problem is that DP9 does not care about game balance at all. It's just that the previously problematic "designers" were more subtle than Saleem about boosting what they want to play.

Agreed except for the subtle part. I see paxton as talons LITE and the creep there is more subtle at 10% undervalued roughly compared with the 20-30% in Talons judging from their successive TV increases. If anything, that indicates that the paxton creep was more subtle to avoid notice. YMMV. In any case, it's more an issue of not learning the true lessons from previous mistakes. You would think that the Talons who had to be increased in TV twice in row would have taught the pod that giving out army wide rules for free is a mistake but Paxton shows they didn't learn anything and I fear that the same thing will happen in the Alpha. The reception to "selectively" pricing various units and upgrades so that the exact same thing costs differing amounts depending on the faction was met largely with derision (I can't recall if anyone liked it frankly)... but Dave snuck it into the northern sublists anyways because he likes it. The pod simply doesn't learn and keeps trying to reinvent the same damn wheel every time they come out with a "new" product.

 warboss wrote:
The pod simply doesn't learn and keeps trying to reinvent the same damn wheel every time they come out with a "new" product.

The problem with creating anything is that people demand and expect new, but they don't necessarily want unique.

For the most part, people need the familiar to feel comfortable enough to function.
And if a particular setting or whatnot lacks something they "need," they'll simply continue to loudly ask for whatever that is to be included until they get whatever it is they want, or else add it themselves, rather than look for it elsewhere.

But if you aren't part of the majority interested in whatever those kinds of folks are clamoring for, well, it sucks to be you. There isn't any room anymore when that happens.
You aren't forced out directly, unless one of those nice folks who got what they wanted chooses to phrase it as such, but it's the exact same effect in the end anyways.

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Yes and no. When a given line benefits from a strong direction, it's far less likely to change course midway to cater for the various trends that crop up.
On the other hand, it does feel like HGB changes course at least once a year...

 Killionaire wrote:
Likewise, last I checked, a lot of the game still needs very basic passes to show how off the math can be. People are still arguing for +1d6 defense for every scrap of terrain in the way between the firer and the target... in other words, ranged combat simply won't work on boards with any decent amount of terrain. Zany.

The math was originally setup for a 2D6 vs. 2D6 roll as the standard, which places the success of outcomes around 60% in the attacker's favor on equal augments. Modifiers were intentionally kept limited, because the difference in high and low augment models really starts to show in those cases. A 2+ augment will have a radically different outcome on 10D6 than a 5+ augment, so the thought was to keep modifiers limited to keep the possible skew low. At 6D6 the most an augment contributes is +4, and will more typically be +1 or +2, which allows 'elite' models to have an edge but not completely overwhelm the 'non-elite' model's ability to respond, either.

Cover was never really addressed to my satisfaction in the pre-Alpha, but at the time it was simple - you got +1D for light, +2D for heavy and you simply picked the value between you and your opponent. You needed 50% cover to get the bonus, 100% cover required your opponent to Detect you. It worked great for Gears, but vehicles tended to make very little use of cover, thanks to their low DEF augment ratings. Some situations were brought up where you could only see 10% of the model, but it was still 'easily hit' which rubbed people the wrong way. That morphed into the +1D for each additional point of cover, but that always felt like the wrong solution to me; it felt more correct to just let cover apply a flat roll, or a augment bonus, but in both cases there are specific models that don't benefit from cover in that case. It probably should have been a flat modifier, but at the time I was trying to keep the system as 'clean' as possible and not have modifiers that influenced both the number of dice you roll, and the final result of the roll, if possible.

But yeah, a major point of the pre-Alpha was to make ranged combat possible, if not work well.

ferrous wrote:
The Alpha is a shame, as I recall Ice originally capped the dice mods fairly low, which would've helped speed things up, as once you hit X dice, just roll.

To be fair, there was never a hard cap in place, it was more of a "don't add too many dice to the system or it breaks" . Having done the numbers, I knew intimately that too many dice end up going back to the 'too many modifiers' problem, where you basically just find the best augment model and go from there. I originally didn't want to encourage that - I wanted the differences in models to be subtle not overt, so that a Jaguar was better in specific situations but tended to operate very much like a Hunter in the common case. Straight rolls of 2D v. 2D would give you very similar performances for the models, but a Jaguar could use cover and attack modifiers 'better'.

I feel like this point was something that's been eroded, as I know that there was a strong backlash from people who thought it was ludicrous that their elite troopers (Black Mambas, Jaguars) couldn't stand in the open at the start of the game without taking damage. That's entirely possible in Blitz, due to the way that modifiers stack, but in the pre-Alpha if you were within 18" of your opponent, and in the open you likely would take a point or two of damage from autocannons and on a good roll from heavier weapons could be blown away. Again, we're talking a ~75% chance to hit on 3Dv2D (+1D for autocannons) vs. 60% with a basic weapon, but autocannons were weaker. The defender having a mere +1D from cover shifts those numbers back to 60% and 45% IIRC.

It looks like most of the elites got +1D DEF automatically, likely because people thought they were dying too easily. Which was the partly the point - the combination of the intentional shift from overt to subtle impacts of equipment (through augments) plus the shift to having a 'swingier' system (because its based on dice not modifiers) was intentional. But I'd guess people didn't care for those changes and Dave is moving it in another direction.

Ah well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

But as I think IceRaptor said, a flat [+mod number] is almost always better in Silhouette over most everything else, including skill. Which Dave has now turned into needing to figure out how many dice to roll, which is probably too often more than you can hold in your hand, for almost every attack, defense, or other in-game check.

Modifiers overwhelm the contribution from skill fairly quickly; IMO if you have to pick between rolling 2D6+1 and 3D6 in Sil, you're better off with 3D6 because the variance in the outcome will be reduced; you're more likely to get a 5 or 6 from the dice, whereas in the 2D6+1 case you've got a ~50% chance of a 5 or 6, but still plenty of possible outcomes otherwise. But if you have to pick between rolling 2D6+2 or 4D6, I'd tend to go with the 2D6+2 because the likelyhood of you getting an 7 or 8 is low, whereas with a bit of luck you can get a 7 or 8 from the 2D6 roll naturally. Additional dice in Sil just makes results trend towards 6, they don't necessarily make then trend higher - whereas modifiers, by their nature, most certainly do.

Which is why you're better off getting a Jaguar over a Skill 3 Hunter; the Jaguar is +1 over the Hunter to start with and benefits from additional modifiers 'more' because as the modifiers get higher, they completely offset the benefit of the dice rolls. The Jaguar that's got a +3 roll is going to see stronger outcomes more than the skill 3 Hunter with a +2 roll, simply because of the way the system is setup. The Hunter's results may be more reliable over time... but most gamers probably won't notice that. It's especially rough because of the way that the DAM vs. ARM values were established, which makes most attacks fail until you beat the defender by +2 or more. So those 'average' results from the Hunter get swallowed up, while the high 'bursts' from the Jaguar show through.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

Anything further I might create relating to Heavy Gear or another setting is entirely for myself, which I may or may not share. Mostly because I'm tired of my competence and knowledge immediately being questioned by the vast majority of folks either online or IRL in lieu of having an actual discussion. Especially with the type of folks who only want to be right and can't see it.

I hope we continue to see more of you around, but I think the HG community needs to find a new 'home' myself. Part of what you're describing is just the nature of the internet, but part of it two is just differences in expectations from the setting. Everybody thinks their view of HG is the right one, and get defensive when they are questioned about it. Of course, most of them just want to play the RPG so ...

 IceRaptor wrote:

(big snip)

Man, I read that post, and I get visions of what that Alpha could have been, with someone competent at the helm. It kinda stings...

 IceRaptor wrote:

I hope we continue to see more of you around, but I think the HG community needs to find a new 'home' myself. Part of what you're describing is just the nature of the internet, but part of it two is just differences in expectations from the setting. Everybody thinks their view of HG is the right one, and get defensive when they are questioned about it. Of course, most of them just want to play the RPG so ...

To a large extent, this thread is that new home.
Combine it with RPG.net, and you pretty much have everyone that (kinda) cares anymore about HG.

The fact that DP9 has chosen to cater to RPG fans, and not to wargamers (if anything, they're pretty hostile to that demographic) is a large part of why HG Blitz never took off. Well, that and their crass incompetence, of course.

I don't frankly think there is enough interest to keep alive another entire community revolving around HG to be honest. Even with the refugees that post in this thread, it would be a pretty underwhelming post count for an entire board. It's a nice thought though. In any case, we'll see how the beta release goes at gencon. I don't think the apparent lack of any scheduled games (whether sponsored or indy... neither category had any) will help the release.

In any case, I'm working again on my northern army albeit in a dimished capacity. I'll be tweaking the minimum amount possible to make it Lion's Wrath ready with only two new minis added to the collection and two others converted to different variants. I bought around a dozen minis last year in prep for this but I just don't think it is worth the effort at the moment. I don't even know if the SECCOM Cheetahs I'm converting will even make it to the alpha.

 HudsonD wrote:
The fact that DP9 has chosen to cater to RPG fans, and not to wargamers (if anything, they're pretty hostile to that demographic) is a large part of why HG Blitz never took off. Well, that and their crass incompetence, of course.

I'm an RPG fan first and foremost, and let me tell you: they're most certainly not catering to me. Not with the way they're treating the core setting and material.

 Albertorius wrote:
I'm an RPG fan first and foremost, and let me tell you: they're most certainly not catering to me. Not with the way they're treating the core setting and material.

Well duh, we all know you're not a fan, you're one of those hateful haters that hate DP9
More seriously, I should have written RPG "fans", with the quote marks. DP9 fans are a weird bunch, to say the least.

Simply put: they want to make a RPG, but are making a wargame instead, so they try to have the breath of a RPG, in term of what's included, but in a wargame. That means that one-off units, historical vehicles, specialists, hyper-rares and death traps must all be fitted in with the normal "wargame" range of models.

Then, less-than-competent "designers" try to give non-redundant stats to those, without testing or doing any maths, based on an obsolete ad-hoc point system that was probably not followed that much by its designers. The end result is that a lot of models have absurd stats and no real correlation between their cost and performance. On top of that, the original RPG, which is the source of all that, was not balanced at that level (nor should it have been!), so some factions ends up with all the advantages, while others have nothing.
Of course, on top of all that, the "designers" have their own rather specific view of the setting and of what make for a good universe, so everything has to fit that view, no matter what the previous products said..

As an ex-PRDF player, the new fluff for Peace-River left a rather sour taste in my mouth. "Yea, that professional, well equipped and trained army you were playing ? They are a bunch of psychopathic madmen with hair triggers now."
That's still better than what they did to the Humanist Alliance, of course.

Good thing the RPG is being worked on.

Oh, and there's some new forums open for Heavy Gear Assault, if anyone's interested.

-Brandon F.

They also put out this video as their first new coverage of the game since the failed pair of crowdfunding campaigns.




I'm glad to hear that their forums are finally working again. I checked out their site a few months back and they weren't despite the dead links staying on the front page of their site.

 HudsonD wrote:

 IceRaptor wrote:
(big snip)

Man, I read that post, and I get visions of what that Alpha could have been, with someone competent at the helm. It kinda stings...

Yeah, I agree, very much so.

 IceRaptor wrote:

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
Mostly because I'm tired of my competence and knowledge immediately being questioned by the vast majority of folks either online or IRL in lieu of having an actual discussion. Especially with the type of folks who only want to be right and can't see it.

Part of what you're describing is just the nature of the internet, but part of it too is just differences in expectations from the setting. Everybody thinks their view of HG is the right one, and get defensive when they are questioned about it. Of course, most of them just want to play the RPG so ...

True enough, but it still sucks, and it's quite hard not to take in a bad way. It would be nice someday to be able to take pride in something created for and accepted by a community, but again, it is true people don't act like that when they see the chance to question.

 IceRaptor wrote:
[..] but I think the HG community needs to find a new 'home' myself.

 HudsonD wrote:
To a large extent, this thread is that new home. Combine it with RPG.net, and you pretty much have everyone that (kinda) cares anymore about HG.

 warboss wrote:
I don't frankly think there is enough interest to keep alive another entire community revolving around HG to be honest. Even with the refugees that post in this thread, it would be a pretty underwhelming post count for an entire board. It's a nice thought though.

I personally don't think there is enough non-Pod supporters to make a go of anything really, having precipitated from such a tiny pool of folks to begin with.
The G+ community is all but dead, and the Facebook community numbers are bloated by those who joined to "like" during the give-away contests, leaving maybe two dozen or so active posters and commentators from what I've seen on there.

But it's still nice to talk about things HG, or at least where an open discussion can still be had.

 Albertorius wrote:
Not with the way they're treating the core setting and material.

mrondeau wrote:
Of course, on top of all that, the "designers" have their own rather specific view of the setting and of what makes for a good universe, so everything has to fit that view, no matter what the previous products said.. That's still better than what they did to the Humanist Alliance, of course.

Yeah, as had been said many times before anything in the setting that doesn't have a "promoter" gets treated in an extremely shoddy manner.
Someone commented to me recently that even the North is getting that treatment now, as if it's merely an afterthought the Pod has to keep going just because it's such a big thing in the source material(s) by being an original primary faction.

I'm honestly surprised Utopia even made it into the Alpha. But a lot less surprised by how it got handled yet again, lacking as it does any supporters amongst TPTB.

BrandonKF wrote:
Good thing the RPG is being worked on. Oh, and there's some new forums open for Heavy Gear Assault, if anyone's interested.

Sadly, both of which are intended for players whose interest coincides with a "mecha-oriented" take on the setting.

Which leaves me out, again .....

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